welcome to my blog

designing and building with wood channels my creativity and challenges my mind.This blog is a record of my life in my studio.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

My Second Woodworking Project: A Chest of Drawers

I'm very happy with my latest project: building a chest of drawers. I know, a chest of drawers is not a hi-fi-related item. And yet I'm writing about a chest of drawers here on the Wicked Hi-Fi Blog because the chest of drawers in question is my second-ever woodworking project, and I'm using it as a test-bed for my next project: the ultimate stereo component cabinet.

Now, before looking at the pictures, I remind you this is my second woodworking project. My first was a sound-absorbing panel, shown below. The work shown took place over the past three days.

Here are pictures of my first chest of drawers, beginning with the four main vertical supports and the six internal rectangular frames. I used a router, chisels, table saw, glue, clamps, and chop saw to make the chest so far. For wood, I used poplar for the inner framing, birch plywood with walnut veneer for the side panels, and I plan to build the drawer sides and faces from African Walnut I bought on sale at Rockler in Porter Square in Cambridge. I love that place. Big up to Peter at Rockler for answering all my questions :) !!

Here are the pics of the chest (Day One)

Here are the pics of Day Two:

As you can see, Day Two was productive: I finished all of the drawer guides, and placed, veneered, stained, and poly-ed the side panels. I also crafted two laminated accent strips out of three strips of hardwood. Here's how I made the accent strips:

And the final step on Day Two was the veneer/stain/poly of the side panels:

Tune in soon for pics of the rest of the project. My goal is to have Maja using it by the morning of Day Five. :)